I’m just not myself today. Paddling around the house this morning, I’m finding myself enveloped in a restless funk.

I tried Mom’s office for a while. The
window in her office is my front yard/main road big screen action
channel. Frank the roadrunner crossing the yard, stops to click at me,
but I don’t feel like answering back today. My muzzle barely over the
love seat’s edge, I know he can’t see me. “Leave me a voicemail, Frank.”

The quail are preening and charging
around like tough guys. Love must be in the air. Charlie the ‘spastic’
mourning dove zips sideways across the window, wildly flapping. My eyes
barely follow his current missed approach. Even the single small feather
that explodes past me doesn’t get a rise.

“Gosh, WHAT is wrong with me today?” I
half slide, half jump from the love seat. “Guess I’ll go see what Tucker
and Sora are doing.”

In the bedroom, Tucker is on his usual
bed corner, and Sora, longer and leaner now, is stretched across the
bench. I barely get a look from either of them. They both know it’s too
early for a lunch alert.

Tucker is engrossed, again, in yet
another tale about his Great Uncle Tuxedo Bond, Double Oh, Kay, Nine.
(Tucker makes a point of saying this every time his uncle’s name is
mentioned.) Sora is drinking in every detail of today’s yarn. Something
about cold children lost in an Icelandic cave, and the evil Kat King who
wants to “TAKE OVER THE WHOLE WORLD!”

“And don’t forget, Tucker, the evil Kat King wants all dogs shaved cleaned and moved to Baltimore in the dead of winter!”

Tucker shoots me The Look. Sora just
yawns her disapproval at my interruption. I faintly hear Sora ask,
“What’s a Baltimore?” as I head into the kitchen to do my search for
dropped scraps of two-legged food. I wonder if the evil Kat King can
invent a machine to increase the gravity in the kitchen.

I know Mom and Dad were both in here
rummaging, but there’s not a single crumb anywhere. For some reason,
this increases my doldrums. It’s beginning to feel like a tangible
weight.

Well, let’s give the back glass door a
try. Wide screen, HDTV nature channel. The sun will be around the big
pine tree soon. Maybe some sun time will cheer me up.

I hear Dad working his way into the
kitchen, but by the pace of his arrival I know it’s not a food moment.
He must be working on something. A metallic scratching noise above my
head makes Dad stop and look up at the ceiling.

“It’s Frank,” he says. “Good, I need to talk to him.”

I get back up on all fours reluctantly to
let Dad by me. He rolls the glass door open slowly. Frank, above the
door, is pacing back and forth on the metal gutter edge.

“Remember our talk last spring, Frank?”

Frank pretends to ignore Dad and tenses his body like he’s about to swoop off any second. Dad, undeterred, continues.

“Remember, Frank: leave the lizards alone back here, and no wild kingdom events involving small birds in front of the wife.”

Frank lowers his head over the gutter to look directly at me and “clicks” at me.

Frank runs, and with short flaps sets a
glide path to the neighbor’s fence. Dad rolls the door shut and turns to
go. Doesn’t pat me, talk to me, nothing. What’s a philosopher girl
gotta do to get a break around here? I should have had Dad read
psychology books to me on the road. Then I’d know how to snap out of
this gloomy mood.

“OK, Hazel, think of some good things. C’mon girl.”

I decide to count my blessings out loud, as we tend to believe ourselves before anyone else.

“Let’s see, we’re all healthy, food is
good, treats occasionally, peaceful nights, breakfast is early most
mornings, Mom and Dad are good to us. Woofstock is coming soon...lots of
dogs get a homeward-bound ticket there.”

I started to chuckle on the last one. I
remember Mom and Dad getting ready for their first Woofstock after Mom
got the magazine. They were like headless chickens on some days. I
thought they might have hydrophobia, but they never started foaming
around the mouth.

Well, that little laugh made me feel a bit better. No action at the backyard. Think I’ll do rounds.

Mom’s in her office, multi-tasking at her
computer screen and her carry-around screen. Tucker and Sora are sound
asleep. Between you and me, Tucker’s stories put me to sleep faster than
a metal folding chair at a wrestling event.

Where’s Dad? I continue down the hall to
his office. He’s sitting on the floor with a bunch of papers. I lay down
across a third of them. For some reason that makes me feel a little bit
better. It feels like I’m climbing out of my funk by degrees.

Instead of fumbling to get his papers,
Dad turns around on the floor and lays his head lightly across what he
calls my brisket. Usually he says something about being “thick in the
brisket,” but lately I’ve trimmed up a bit. Dad, well, not so much.

While I’m glowing a bit with the
attention Dad is giving me, he starts telling me how much better I look,
and that I am getting a quite a regal look about me. He goes on to tell
me he is very thankful for my help and patience with Tucker and the
puppies we’ve fostered.

Now that’s just what the doctor ordered! I
feel like I just stepped into the sunlight from a dark tunnel. Before I
can bask any longer in my new-found contentment, Dad jumps up and
announces, “LUNCHTIME, kids!”

Mad dash down the hall.

I think after lunch I’ll tell Sora how
beautiful and smart she is. Then I’ll ask Tucker to tell me a story.
Maybe I could tell him he’s got a talent for story-telling. Let’s see if
contentment is contagious.